Slipping Wives (1926)

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A love-starved wife (Priscilla Dean) hires a dim-witted delivery man (Stan Laurel) to make love to her and revive the waning interest of her eccentric artist husband (Herbert Rawlinson). As might be expected, the makeshift gigolo manages to foul things up, disastrously confusing the identities of… More A love-starved wife (Priscilla Dean) hires a dim-witted delivery man (Stan Laurel) to make love to her and revive the waning interest of her eccentric artist husband (Herbert Rawlinson). As might be expected, the makeshift gigolo manages to foul things up, disastrously confusing the identities of the husband and a family friend and ultimately reuniting the couple in spite of himself. This very early effort of the Laurel and Hardy team has them working very much out of character and mostly on their own as members of the "Hal Roach Comedy All-stars" along with once-prestigious dramatic performers Rawlinson and Dean. The focus is on the rubber-limbed Stan (who pulls off an inspired pantomime sequence illustrating the Biblical story of Sampson and Delilah), with Hardy in the supporting part of the estranged couple's irate butler. Stan and Ollie do manage to tangle a bit in vigorous slapstick involving fumbled paint cans and another fiasco in which Hardy is ordered to bathe and groom a severely skittery Laurel. The plot is a rough warm-up of sorts for one of the more mature duo's last sound shorts, The Fixer Uppers(1934). ~ Rovi